Okanagan College students capture silver medal at competition

A team of second-year Okanagan College School of Business students took home the silver medal at a recent competition in Vancouver for pitching a way to make festivals more accessible.

Now in its third year, go2HR’s Winning Pitch is a competition held at the British Columbia Tourism Industry Conference where post-secondary students pitch business plans to develop a local tourism activity. This year the teams were asked to develop a new product or service that supports the development of accessible tourism opportunities in their region.

“Our concept, AccessFest, was a series of four seasonally inspired festivals designed around people with accessibility requirements that utilized the shoulder seasons of unique British Columbian destinations, and focused on bringing long-haul destination tourists to our province,” said team member Zachary Plaxton.

“After our presentation, people were asking us when we planned on actually doing the idea, and even though the concept was hypothetical, it was pretty neat to have people truly believe the idea is possible.”

Plaxton along with teammates Emily Pilon, Bryan Cresswell, and Celina Matte won the Regional Competition in November, earning the opportunity to compete against three other Regional finalists, fourth-year students from Vancouver Island University, BCIT, and College of the Rockies.

“We are particularly proud of these four second-year students as they competed against fourth-year students with more experience, knowledge and training in front of the largest audience in my experience,” said Blair Baldwin, Okanagan School of Business professor who coached the team alongside professor Alan Rice.